Saturday, March 31, 2012

Flashback Friday

Had a lovely evening with the wife tonight.  Went to the mall for a card show and to check up on Skyler on her first day on the job.  We basically only hit one table but she helped me go through the cards looking for White Sox cards.  Then she checked my lists for me.  The girl behind the table was very pleasant and we chatted while we searched.  It’s always nice to get out and spend time alone together.

That’s why this is a little late.  Technically it’s after midnight here.  And I have to be up at 6:30 for work.  And yes, they posted Sunday too.  So I’ll be working 11 days straight before my 3 day holiday weekend.

Flashback Friday

I’ve seen on a couple of other blogs that they were talking about their 1st jobs so I figured that would be a good subject for my first Flashback Friday.

My first job was at TJ Maxx.  I assume they are all over, I know it was a chain, but if not, they are mainly a cheaper clothing outlet with all kinds of other things as well.  I remember having to wear the gray smock over my dress clothes.  I had to wear ties to that job, and if you know me, that’s a negative in my book.  I was 16 so I could only work limited hours but I usually worked a few nights and the weekends.

I ran the register, straightened shelves, a little bit of everything.  Even cleaned bathrooms, and let me say, women are way messier than men.  Running the register was my favorite, as much as I hate people now, I enjoyed dealing with them back them.  I was young and stupid, what can I say.

Mostly what I remember from that job was going to Hacienda on lunch breaks, ordering pop and eating the free chips for a whole meal.  They don’t allow you to do that anymore, they don’t bring the chips till you order your food.  So much for cheap meals.  The other thing I remember is perfume fights.  When one of the other employees would walk buy, you come up behind them and spray a crap load of perfume on them so they would reek with it the rest of the day.

It wasn’t a bad job by any means.  Not an exciting story I know, but I don’t really remember too much about it.  It was 23 year ago.  Holy Crap, I’m old.

WTF Did They Say?

Welcome to the 2nd edition of WTF Did They Say.  Today’s stooge hales from Indiana and doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.  Need I say more?  Yeah, it was me.

My plant manager walked up to me and asked if I was going to play the lottery tonight, my quick response, with obviously no thought.

“You don’t pay me enough to afford to play the lottery”

Probably shouldn’t tell the person who pays you that.  I told you I wasn’t that bright.  But wait, there’s more.

My foreman came up and handed out new handbooks, I took it, listened to his speal about it, then asked

“So does everyone get the same handbook or does each person get a different one since everyone has their own rules”

Maybe I should have titled this “Reason’s Why Jeff Will Never Advance at This Company.”

Yeah, I’m an idiot.  Good thing they are used to putting up with me.  If I ever start to suck at my job, I may be gone in a heartbeat.  Hey mom, you got room in the basement?

Friday, March 30, 2012

Weekly Catch Up, Late Edition

Weekly Catch Up

Laws Reviews

I actually did a little work on this blog this week.  Although I’m still waiting for my first follower.  I don’t really expect any.  This blog is more to help me with what I’ve watched and haven’t.

Stats

  • Total page views = 104
  • Total posts = 16
  • Total followers = 0

My Sports Obsession

I haven’t done these catch ups in almost 3 weeks but I’m only going back a week for these.

Stats

  • Total page views = 13,655
  • Total posts = 332
  • Total followers = 72

My Sports Obsession(1)

Random sports photos.  There are no stats for this blog as it is a Tumblr account, not a blogger account, so it doesn’t have any stats.  Again, I only went back a week and a half instead of the full 3 weeks.

  • 2 University of Michigan posts.
  • 11 White Sox posts.
  • 9 other MLB posts.
  • 1 Indianapolis Colts post.

Total of 23 posts.

Random Thoughts From A Random Guy

Stats

  • Total page views = 1373
  • Total posts = 109
  • Total followers = 5

Too Many Manninghams

I only guest post on this blog about my Michigan cards.

Stats

  • Total page views = 1144
  • Total posts by me = 9
  • Total followers = 15

facebook

I don’t add people I don’t know, but if you’d like me to add you to my facebook, just let me know that you read my blog.

Jeff Laws(2)

See the next post of WTF did they just say, because it was me using my sharp tongue when I shouldn’t be.

Jeff Laws(1)

I was leaving work and there were 5 moped’s sitting there. You have to be 18 to work there, so you do the math.

Jeff Laws

I do love spotify.  That was on my break at work.  I tend to listen to headphones because too many people have no inside voice and it’s freaking loud in there.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Through the Depressed Hole in my Shorts

Started off this morning in a depressed mood.  Not sure why I get these but I do.  I just wake up feeling blah!  Yes, that’s the clinical term.  I doesn’t happen often and I hadn’t had a morning like that in awhile.

Basically I walk around at work and think about how much my life sucks.  Not that it does, but that’s what I think about.  All the bad points in my life.  But I eventually get out of the funk.  It’s really odd how it comes along and hits me.  Does anyone else have these?  I’m not depressed about my life, sure there are things I would change but I’m usually a fairly upbeat person, until one of these moods hit.

I went to break, stuck my headphones in and jammed while reading blogs.  Yes, I can read while I listen to music.  I’m multi-talented.  Anyways, I felt better after that.

Went to the school last night to watch my 9 year old daughters production of “Through the Looking Glass”.  As we were heading out to the car, Cheri told me I had holes at the corners of my pockets in my jean shorts.  Apparently she was checking out my ass.  So I untucked my t-shirt from underneath my hoodie and let it hang down and it covered the holes.  Good enough for tonight, we’re high class here.

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You can tell Samantha is getting older because the acting is getting a lot better.  I was very impressed with the 5th graders who did all of the acting.  The girl who played the red queen was awesome as was the girl who played Alice.  The photo above was just to show how huge of a production this was.  I guess I’m just used to the small elementary productions.  Of course, I’m also used to the hour productions.  This was almost 2 hours, in those hard ass chairs.  My back and neck were hurting.  Thank God we brought Cheri’s wheelchair for her to sit in, although, after 2 hours, she was hurting pretty bad too.

2012-03-28_20-42-37_196Samantha was in the chorus and was stuck in the back row so we hardly ever got to see her.  I managed to get this shot during one of the few chances I could see her.

She was the 6 of Diamonds and we all know Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.  And a dad’s best friend.

It’s not a flattering picture but that’s as far as my zoom on my phone would go.

She had a blast though.  It was the first time she had to stay after school for practices.  I guess I’m going to have to start getting used to driving back and forth to school for after school activities.  Next year Samantha wants to get into basketball.  They don’t have it in the 4th grade, but do in the 5th.  I’ll enjoy the sports activities more then I will the plays.  But that’s what us parents do.

But wait, the story isn’t over yet.  Remember my shorts?  As I was getting into the car to head home, I heard a rip.  I looked at Cheri and told her I think my shorts just ripped.  Thank God that didn’t happen at the program.  Although if it had, luckily my boxers were the same color as jeans.  Don’t get excited at this explicit photo.

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Maybe my depressed mood was the mourning of my shorts.  I have had them a few years.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Randomness

Tuesday already?  It’s been a slow week already and they didn’t waste anytime on posting Saturday this weekend so it’ll be a 6 day week.  There’s still rumors going around about them still posting Sunday.  Considering once they post Saturday, production drops each day.  I’d say we will work it.  Especially with the 3 day weekend next week.

Samantha’s teacher is starting to piss me off.  I got a phone call from him on Friday just before he left the school.  I was in the shower so he left a voicemail saying that he needed to talk to me about summer options for Samantha.  So I’m assuming that once again, Samantha is going to be taking another session of summer school.  But that’s not the part that pisses me off.  Well, it does, but not at her teacher.  He told me to call him back and leave a voicemail, or email him and let him know when the best time for him to call me back was.  So I emailed him, told him anytime after 3:30, or he could text the number or he could email me back and I’ll stop by after work and talk to him face to face.

It’s now been 2 days since he’s gone back to school and I still haven’t heard anything from him.  Don’t freaking call me and want me to return the call if your not going to respond.  Now here I am, wondering if my daughter is going to have to miss Girl Scouts camp again.  Wondering if I need to punish her for lack of effort.  Wondering if she’s just not as smart as I think she is.  Wondering if she has a learning disability.  Wondering if she’s going to grow up to be a serial killer.

Ok, maybe not that bad, but you get the point.  I’d rather know the verdict on whether she needs to go or not.  Plus I want to talk to him to find out if she’s just not getting it, or she being a chatty Cathy and not paying enough attention.  Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard that about her.

Wife and I sat down to watch “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” tonight and I pulled the DVD out of the Netflix envelope and thought WTF?

dragontattoodvd

I went ahead and stuck it in the DVD player even though it was a burned copy.  I figured I could hopefully at least still watch the movie.  But I sat down at my laptop and loaded up the Netflix site and went to report the issue.  I know my luck and if I sent this back, I’ll have the freaking FBI at my doorstep with a warrant because they’ll think I burned a copy.  We’ve all read the warnings.  There wasn’t really an option to report this kind of problem so I found their support 24 hour phone number and called it.

I get the lady on the line and tell her “I received the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in the mail and it’s a burned copy.”

She started laughing and said “I don’t know why the manufacturer did that”

Amongst our conversation, she told me that a bunch of people have called in about it.  She said they had to Google it because they don’t ever see the DVD’s either.

I guess now that I look at the DVD closer, it has a rating on it, that should have given it away.  I felt like a dumb ass but at least she was cool about it.  We were both laughing the whole time.

I’d like to get back into reading books again, which means I need to cut down some of the blogs I read.  So I’m going to be deleting some out of my Google Reader sometime this week.  I follow a few MS ones where the patients are really bad off.  I’m not going to follow those anymore because one, I’m not dealing with someone who is that bad off yet (and hopefully never will be).  Two. it’s depressing to know that my wife may end up like them in the future.  Most of those that I’m deleting have the MS where the symptoms are there most of the time, where my wife has the remitting kind where the symptoms come for a few days then goes away.

So it’s not that I don’t appreciate these bloggers and what they are going through.  If I had the time, I would keep reading them.  But I have to delete some and those are the ones that will lose out.

Also some of the mommy blogs will go.  Mainly the ones that deal with their autistic kids.  Again, it isn’t that I don’t appreciate what they are going through, but it doesn’t help me any.  So I’ll be weeding some out throughout the week.  I’m averaging about 2 days behind as it is now so I need to get those down so I can enjoy books again.  Kim Harrison’s latest “The Hollows” book is out now and it’s on top of the list.  I need to finish the Harry Dresden series too.  Plus I’ve probably gotten about 20 free books on my Kindle that I plan on getting to as well.

I know this is a long post, but I want to leave you with one more thing before I go.  My daughter just got done in the shower and I sat outside the bathroom door for about 5 minutes waiting for her to come out.  I scratched at the door like I was the cat wanting in, she opened it, didn’t see the cat, then shut it again.  So I kept scratching but she didn’t come out.  So I just sat in wait.  Here’s what happened.

Yes, I’m rocking my PJ’s with a hoodie.  That’s how I roll.  My son opened his door and said “Good scare, daddy”

Monday, March 26, 2012

Jagger Set Fire to the Rain in the End, WTF?

I survived the trip to Indy yesterday.  We hit the zoo but spent a little too much time riding trains and petting sharks.  When I get the chance to upload the photos, I’ll post more about it.  I got a couple of music posts and a new “segment” that I thought of today.

Insane in the Membrane

This song was stuck in my head a few days ago, probably Friday.  Nothing special about it, I heard it on my way in to work and couldn’t get it out of my head.  This group’s first album was about the time I really started to get into rock again.  Before that, I don’t even remember what I listened to at the time.  I was working in steel construction at the time, and I rode to the worksites with the foreman and my brother (he got me the job) and they listened to rock.  So hearing it every morning, kind of got me hooked.

Linkin Park–In the End

When this album came out I loved every song on it.  Only bad part about it was it was really short.  Anything Linkin Park did for awhile, I loved.  The mix of rock with some rap was awesome and I still like songs that mix it well.

Now today was a different story.  I ended up with 2 songs in my head today.  The first song I have no idea where it came from, the second has a story.

Maroon 5–Moves like Jagger

Like I said above, I listen to rock in the mornings, so obviously this song didn’t come from there.  The bad part is about the only lyrics I really know are the “I got the moves like Jagger, I got the moves like Jagger, I got the mooooOOOOoovveesss like Jagger.”  So here I am singing those 3 lines that are all the same, over and over and over again.  Ahhhh!!!

The next song I know where it came from, I walked into the breakroom and C had it playing out loud on his phone for Mike.  I’ll get to that whole story later.

Adele–Set Fire to the Rain

Now this song, I know even less of, so while it was stuck in my head.  I kept whistling it.  I’ve probably heard in about 10 times or so, but I never committed much of it to memory.  It’s one of those songs that while I’m listening to it, I can sing a long with a lot of it, but if you ask me to sing it without it playing, I’m lost.  I do like the song, just not a song I hear much because I don’t generally listen to that type of music.  Only when I relinquish the radio controls to the wife.  Or the oldest daughter, been then you only hear half because she can’t keep it on a full song.

WTF Did They Just say?

Here’s the new “segment” I mentioned above.  I’ll throw out a short story about something really stupid I heard (or said) that day.

As I mentioned above, I walked into the breakroom and C was playing Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain on his phone.  Mike was sitting there trying to guess who was singing it.  C was saying stuff like “C’mon Mike, you should know this” and Mike was going on about how he knows country well.  Yeah he’s an idiot.  I heard “She was on American Idol” and “I even think she won”.  I just sat there shaking my head.  I looked at Mike and said “you’re a moron”.  C asked me if I knew who sang it, I said I believe it’s Adele.  And just so you know, I pulled that out of my ass.  Any other time I wouldn’t have knows who sang it.  C was like, right on, that’s it.  And then I heard Mike say this.

“I only listen to country but I change the channel when girl’s come on and sing because I like to sing to the radio and I don’t like to sing that high”

I stopped, thinking to myself “Did I just hear that right”  I had a confused look on my face then I looked at Mike and said “C’mon Mike, you know you belt on Shania Twain’s “Man, I feel like a woman” when you hear it.  I told C the only time I even list to country is if my wife is in the car, Mike says “at least someone has taste”.  I said “Does your wife like country?”  He says “yes” very proudly.  And I said “So apparently liking country doesn’t mean you have taste since she also chose your dumb ass”  At least he learned to shut up instead of making himself look more stupid, eventually.  He finally ignored me, you’d think he’d learn to just keep his mouth shut, but he’s a slow learner.

He’s one of those guys who is a freaking moron, but acts like he knows everything.  And I hate people like that.  He tries to get involved in everybody else’s conversations and throw out just bits of info, to make it look like he knows what he’s talking about.  I should also explain, there are very few people who I hate, and even fewer people that get on my nerves so bad I can’t stop my mouth.  He is both of those to me.  He just rubs me wrong and I don’t hold back when talking to him.  You would think he just wouldn’t talk to me, but as I said, he’s an idiot.

Hopefully I’ll keep this segment around, I hear all kinds of crap, I’ll be sure to relay it to this segment.  It should be fun.  I’m also thinking about a Flashback Friday that you all might enjoy.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

He Shoots the Three, and Scores

I won an award, I’ve made it, I’m a top mommy!  Oh wait, not that one and you know, I’m not a mommy.  Red bestowed it upon me to give me the 3 award.  What this means for me is I have to tell you 3 things about me, shouldn’t be too hard.  And for me to pick 3 other bloggers that I want to know about.  That will be a little more difficult since I follow so many.  As I’m relatively new to all this, there are only a few of you that I’ve even talked to via comments.  Take Red out of that takes half of those out. I need to get out there more apparently.

So to start off, 3 things about me, hmmm. 
  1. To my family, “traditions” are huge.  Each holiday, we do the same thing every year.  You name a holiday, and I can tell you when and where we’ll be.  An example – Easter – Meet at my mom’s for lunch, after lunch, everybody but a few of us walks down to the river and it doesn’t matter if it’s 20 below out, your going.  The few that stay back hide eggs in the backyard and I’m talking 300+ eggs for everyone.  River people come back and the kids go looking for eggs.  Hang out for a bit and then head home.  Every holiday is preplanned like that.  My grandmother once asked me if I’d carry on the traditions after they were gone, I said “Hell No, the traditions are dying with you”.  But in reality, we’ll all still be doing them, which she knows.
  2. I’m a square.  I may lose readers after this one, but I’ve never done any drugs (other than doctor recommended), none.  I hadn’t even smelled pot before this year (stupid neighbors).  There is reasons for that, one, I’ve never desired to try any but also, I’ve never had a lot of friends so I was never peer pressured to try any.  Being a loner is not always a bad thing.
  3. Back in high school, I took a trip to Wyoming with a group of other teens.  We spent one day hiking on “The Grand Tetons” mountains.  Elevation is 13,770 feet (2.6 miles)  We left from the base of the mountain in shorts, and had to hike though huge snow banks when we got to the top.  It was pretty wild.  You couldn’t walk straight up on the snow because of the slope of the mountain, you had to walk across and zig zag till you got to the top of the snow.  If I recall correctly, I got in trouble on the way back down because rather than do the zig zag, I sat on my backpack and rode it straight down.  Digging my feet in just before I hit the rocks at the bottom.  Out of the 25 or so teens that made the hike, I was 1 of the only 3 that made it all the way to the top.  Wish I still had that kind of energy.  My brother wussed out on the last mile.

Well, there’s 3 things about me.  That was a little tougher than I thought it would be.  Mainly because I’m pretty much an open book.  I really don’t have many secrets but that’s mainly because I generally don’t care what people think about me, therefore, why would I care what you know about me.  To prove it, feel free to ask me anything in the comments.  I’ll answer.
Now for the 3 people I’m giving awards to, this is a little tougher because there’s so many that I follow.  I’m going to try to show some love to the other Dad’s out there blogging about their adventures.  I don’t much about them or their blogs as I’ve only been reading them for a few weeks, but I do know that I enjoy them.
  1. Wag The Dad – Because he’s a dad, and takes on various topics from a father’s perspective.  He pulls no punches and is funny as hell.  And apparently likes to drool in the shower, haven’t tried that yet.
  2. Daddy Scratches – Because he’s a dad, and I loved his last post about the Harry Potter books.  And he’s not afraid to tell his kids no, which is a rarity anymore.
  3. Telling Dad – I’m really new to his blog, but I like what I’ve seen so far.  And I read where he is F-bomb free which is cool.  While I don’t mind cussing, I tend to cuss a lot outside of my home.  I just can’t bring myself to do it in my blog.
So there you have it, showing some of the dad’s some love.  Be sure to check them all out and be sure to check out another (soon to be) Hoosier, Red’s blog “Doesn’t Speak Klingon”.  Thanks for the award, it was greatly appreciated.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

What age should kids ride in the front seat?

I promised you an award winning post tonight, and I’ve typed it out but it’s set to post tomorrow while I’m on my way to Indianapolis with the family for the Zoo and the Children’s Museum.

I dropped the kids off to the JackAss yesterday, who doesn’t like me anymore because I ratted him out to his wife.  He text’s my wife and I all the time making fun of theEx, which is fine, but I think he’s been making stuff up so I try to take the kids from my ex.  I sat down with her last week and started showing her some of his texts where he is making fun of her and even one that said, I love her but I hope she leaves me.  And he’s been telling me things that she says isn’t true or things that she didn’t know anything about.  So she confronted him that night and he texted me and says I thought I could trust you.  Whatever.  Anyways, fast forward till last night.  He meets me at the meeting place and has my 9 year old daughter get in the front seat.  I was pissed.  I called up theEx and told her that she needs to talk to him and make sure she’s not riding in the front.  She agreed with what I told her and said she’d talk to him.

Next thing I know, I’m getting a text from him for me not to worry about what goes on in my house and that it’s their rules when they are with them.  I wasn’t going to get into it with him.  So I texted the ex and told her to tell her girlfriend to stop texting me.  He texted me something else.  I told her to tell her girlfriend to stop texting me.  She sends a final text that says he reads all her texts.  And?  Like I care.  Then he texts me and says “I’ll make you think girlfriend next time I see you, pussy".  Now that’s me translating his gibberish and misspelling because the guy is a moron.  I was shaking in my shoes, trembling from head to toe.  Well, that’s more because I was laughing my ass off.  Whatever, bring it girlfriend.  I have no respect for someone that gets upset when they are called a name.  Especially girlfriend.  I’ve been called way worse and I don’t get upset.  You call me a name and expect me to get upset, you’ll be highly disappointed.  I’ve said before that I don’t care what you think so why would I care what your opinion about me is.

He texted my wife and told her that I said she was a cripple.  We had a good laugh about that.  And now I call her my little cripple.  He also said that he would keep Sam in the back from now on so he wasn’t causing any fights.

So tonight, I was running Samantha to a friends birthday party and had a talk to her.  I asked her if she remembered how quickly that guy pulled out in front of us on his bike, how it happened like that (snapped my fingers).  I told her, what would have happened if she was sitting in the front seat and something happens, because it happens quickly.  I explained to her how fast the airbag comes out and that it could possibly kill her instantly.  And that I don’t want to lose her over something that stupid as her sitting in the front seat.  I had her lean forward and read the warning label on my visor.  I also told her if anybody asks her to get in the front seat of the car that she needs to refuse.  I don’t care where she is, that she is to call me and I will come get her.

I feel horrible for scaring her like that but she does not need to be in the front seat.  And I told her I wasn’t mad at her for getting in the front because he told her too.  I also told her that I wasn’t trying to be a mean dad, but that I couldn’t imagine losing her.  I’m not sure if I did the right thing but it’s done now. 

Spring has Sprung

We all know the temps have been great.  But I got a couple of phone call’s last week that officially announced spring is here.  Time for baseball/softball practice.  Samantha had her first practice on Thursday night.

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It was great being out to the ballpark again.  I haven’t officially been asked to help coach but it usually happens.  I never get asked during the practices, but when games start and other coaches can’t make games, I usually end up getting asked.  I’ve been Samantha’s coach every year she’s played even though I’ve never signed up to be.  They see me at all the practices and all the games, and they usually see me working with Samantha and I get asked.  While I do love helping out, I’m perfectly content sitting and watching as well.  So it doesn’t really matter to me.

Trevor hasn’t started his practice’s yet, his coach mentioned spring break but we’ll see.  I have a little more trouble helping him as he doesn’t know which way to bat or throw.  He’ll pick up a bat or the ball and do it right or left handed.  He’s left handed in “real life” so I try to teach him left handed.  But as he get’s older I’ll introduce him to switch hitting.  Once in awhile I have to remind him to hit left handed now when he goes up to bat.  I don’t think he thinks about it, just goes up there and stands in the first batters box he gets to.

x

I tried to catch the sky above the ball field.  It didn’t help I was using my phone I guess.

I’ll try to get another post up later today on my award winning blog, that’s right, I got an award.  If I don’t get it up today, it’ll probably go Monday because we are taking the kids to the Indianapolis Zoo and Children’s Museum.tomorrow.  Leaving at 6am.  So much for sleeping in on the weekend.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Insane Tranny Texting

I think I’m going to have fun with these titles.  Combining all my random thoughts into one title.  Maybe I can get some more traffic with titles like that.

Granny Tranny

The lovely wife and I went out for supper tonight to celebrate her birthday.  It was a nice dinner, food was good.  Lots of food, we both left stuffed.  But we still went out for custard afterwards.  You have to have ice cream on your birthday, I believe it’s the law.  What I really wanted to tell you about was this.

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You can click on it to enlarge but it’s a little blurry.  When we walked in, he was sitting at the bar.  Yes, I said he.  Apparently my wife told me to look and I didn’t hear her.  We couldn’t see him from our table but I caught a glimpse of him when he went out to smoke.  At quick glance it looked like an older, and I mean older, women with torpedo boobs.  Too old to be dressing like that.

But we got a good view when he went to the restroom, which would be the door behind him.  And just to verify, he went into the men’s restroom.  I can’t imagine walking in and and there would be an old lady standing at the urinal with her dress up taking a piss.  I picture her turning and in a deep voice saying “What’s up?”.  I’m dying just typing this.  My imagination is running wild now and it isn’t pretty.  But I managed to snap this shot of him coming out of the restroom.  Even blurry, you can see what I’m saying.

While I have nothing against people who live this lifestyle, when you make it obvious, I’m going to make fun.  I’ve actually had a lap dance by a cross dresser at a gay club, while wearing a necklace with little penis’ on it.  Boy I hope family doesn’t read this blog.  It was a bachelorette party for a friend and let me tell you about a gay bar, there were about 5 bachelorette parties going on, all girls.  So about half the people in the bar, were straight females.  And as most bachelorette parties in a bar are, they were early 20’s females.  For the record, this was awhile ago.  I didn’t have shot anyways but it was nice viewing.

INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE

I haven’t had a song stuck in my head in awhile.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t had songs floating through there, but I usually only post songs that stick in there for a few hours.  For today, I only had 1 song and it was stuck in there most of the day.  I will vary over between songs from the same group but I eventually would end up back on this song.

DC Talk–Free at last.

Don’t judge me!!  You know when you’re a teenager and the music you listened to kind of sticks with you the rest of your life.  Probably something about being impressionable.  Well back then, I listened to christian music.  It still gets stuck in my head, and I have a lot of those old songs on my spotify and listen to every so often.  It’s nostalgic for me.  Any of the christian music I have on my spotify doesn’t go past probably 1991 or 1992.  Believe me I’m far from being religious now, but I do still love these songs I grew up with.  I think it scares my wife sometimes, she probably thinks I’ll revert to my old ways and start going to church, maybe go back to being a Sunday School teacher.  Yeah, I’m not kidding, I was one at one time.  She usually gives me strange looks and backs away without taking her eye off of me.  Like she couldn’t use some religion in her life.  Pfff.

WTF WERE THEY THINKING?

My wife told me about this story, then I heard about it this morning on the radio on my way to work.  They were saying it made national news.  A woman walked off a pier while texting, into the river.  2 people had to jump in after her.  If I remember correctly the guy was with her and another woman who was on the pier went in after her and kept her afloat.  Here’s the story.  I guess they should have spent some of that money they spent on PSA announcements for texting while driving on walking while texting.

I know this isn’t my sports blog, but this is funny not to share.  If you follow this story at all it will be.

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Happy Birthday Baby!

Today, my wife turns the ripe old age of 39.  I can say ripe and old because I don’t turn 39 until June.  Therefore, she’s old and I’m not. 

It’s been a trying year for us.  All the new diagnosis, treatments, new aches and pains.  But it’s been a good year for us too, because we are together.  2 years ago at this time, we were 600 miles away from each other, in love, but only getting to spend a weekend every few months together.  But I’ll save that story for another time.

We are here now and happy.  Grateful that we can spend our birthday’s together.  We don’t have much planned.  Neither of us really care about our birthday’s.  We are both happy to have them come and go without nobody noticing.  My mom’s going to watch the kids for us, I’m sure the teenager will be running around with her friends, so we are going to go and have supper together.  Which sometime can be a rarity for us to actually take the time and sit down in a restaurant.  It’s her birthday, so she got to pick where we are going.  She wanted to go somewhere that we hadn’t been before so we are going to Tilt-A-Kilt.  We’ve been hearing how great their food is, so we are going to check it out tonight.  Just a night alone with my baby to celebrate her birthday.

Regardless of whether or not we go all out for our birthdays, I wanted to take the time to tell the love of my life, Happy Birthday.  And I look forward to many, many more birthday’s together.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Pinewood Derby

michigancar02_thumb1As I mentioned yesterday, we spent about 5 hours at the Hope United Methodist Church in Edwardsburg for the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby races.  There were around 35 or so racers.  Pictured to the right was my sons car.  He got together with Grandpa for 4 different Monday evenings to work on it.  Sounded like a good job for Grandpa and Trevor because I don’t know crap about tools and I am far from being handy.  But Trevor sat down and drew what he wanted for his car so he designed it, the shape and the paint scheme.  And they set to work.  It looked awesome and Trevor was so excited for the race.

2012-03-17_11-28-40_271When we got there, he kept saying how long the track was.  Finally I asked him, are you worried your car isn’t going to make it to the end?  He was.  But the races started and it had no problems reaching the finish line.  They raced 3 cars at a time, as you can tell to the left, for 12 rounds.  So when it was finished, each car raced 4 times in each lane to make it fair.  Trevor’s car placed 1st and 2nd for most of the races, I only remember him getting last in one race.

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2012-03-17_11-55-48_971The setup was pretty awesome I must say.  One of the Cub Scout leaders is obviously very good with computers and electronics.  It was set up so that each race was random as well as the 4 times per track that I mentioned above.  He had a laser set up at the start line and one at the finish line.  Immediately after the race was finished, the results posted up on a screen for everyone to see.  I figured it would be people at the finish line with stopwatches.  You would think I would have been prepared for the electronic setup, but I wasn’t.  I was very impressed.

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I think even if Trevor hadn’t had a car in the race, he would have had a blast.  He loved watching all the races from the sidelines.  He doesn’t show much emotion at home when he does something.  He’s such a laid back, nonchalant boy.  Kind of like his father.  So it’s always great to see him having so much fun.  Even at Boy Scouts on Thursday night, when all the boys are sitting at the tables, just doing 2012-03-17_11-28-24_416projects and things.  He just usually sits there and does his project with little emotion on his face.  As you can tell in these photos, so much emotion.  I really love seeing him this happy.  It’s such a rarity that he shows it.

After 6 rounds of racing, they stopped and had a lunch break.  They got subs from Walmart and divided it up into huge pieces.  You got a sandwich, chips, cookie and a drink all for $2.  2012-03-17_11-43-50_594The Scout and 1 parents meal were paid so if anyone else came, they had to pay for theirs.  Which if you know my family, they came.  My family supports everybody in what they do.  Along with Cheri, Samantha and I, Trevor was also rooted on by 2 cousins, 2 grandparents and 2 great-grandparents.  I think everyone that came had a great time.  Except for maybe Cheri, but that was due to her being sore and not feeling well.  I do think she had a good time watching though.2012-03-17_11-34-21_246  And we hung out with some friends as well so we chatted a bit too.

Each racer sat on a chair at the end of the track so they could watch the pinewood cars coming right at them.  As you can tell from the picture on the right, Trevor was all into it.  You sat in the chair in accordance to where your car was on the track.  Trevor is sitting in the lane 1 chair on that picture2012-03-17_11-37-35_249 as well as the one below.  I’m guessing by his reactions in the picture, that was one of his 1st place finishes.

The scoring went by total time in all the races.  So the finishes in the race didn’t really matter in the overall picture.  They gave out trophies for the top finisher in each pack.  Trevor is a Tiger Scout which was given the name “Dragonfly’s”.  He didn’t place tops in his pack but he did make the top 20 out of all the racers there.  He ended up placing 15th overall. 2012-03-17_11-55-45_345 But by the end of the races, he didn’t care.  He had such a great time.  He was such a happy boy.  He’s growing up so fast.  The way he talks sometimes, he has a maturity about himself.  Not always, but once in awhile you get a glimpse of it.  After the races, they did a quick race where siblings could go against each other. I wish I had known about this as Samantha probably would have made one as well. Although they compete at everything they do so I don’t know if they really needed something else to compete in.

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During the sibling races, they figured out all the winners and after they handed out the trophies.  Everyone got a participation trophy.  Trevor was pumped about it, he said he gets to add it to his medal from baseball last year (participation) and the medal he got from Cheri’s cake selling for the most amount of money during the cake sale for scouts.  But this was his first trophy.

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      Trevor with is car and trophy.                       Trevor with his Great Grandparents

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Trevor with grandpa.  Who built the car.                                    Trevor and I

After they had the awards he went over to a friends house from Scouts and spent the night over there.  So he had an exciting day.  And it was truly a great day at the races.  Who needs NASCAR?